Nelson zeroing in on zone final
The fickle nature of representative cricket is already well documented.
Less than three months ago, the Nelson Griffins were lamenting a disappointing 51-run one-day Newman Shield loss to Marlborough. And when they were forced to abandon their scheduled warmup fixture against Canterbury Country the following week due to injuries and unavailability, it appeared that new Nelson coach Aldin Smith had his work cut out in his attempts to mould a newlook representative team.
Now several weeks on, Nelson are celebrating an unbeaten zone 3 Hawke Cup run that’s seen them beat Marlborough by an innings and end Buller’s hopes of a second consecutive challenge after an impressive first innings win in Westport at the weekend.
With stand-in skipper Greg Hay and Joe O’Connor scoring centuries in Nelson’s first innings total of 422, Nelson’s bowlers then dismissed Buller for 128 on Buller High School’s artificial wicket, prompting Hay to enforce the follow-on. Buller were 255-5 in their second innings when stumps were finally drawn.
Nelson now meet Canterbury Country in their last zone 3 fixture at Saxton Oval in two weeks’ time to determine which of those two provinces will host the zone 3 final from February 10-12. The winner will challenge for the Hawke Cup.
So it’s been a heady turn around for the side, with Smith acknowledging the significance of Central Stags batsman Hay’s impact on Nelson’s weekend success.
‘‘It’s very difficult to come down from playing for the Stags . . . you find yourself coming to Buller and playing on an artificial [wicket] from maybe having faced some test bowlers and to just man up and show his professionalism and stand up in a performance like he did was just unreal,’’ Smith said. ‘‘It just shows the true professional that he is.’’
Smith also praised O’Connor’s work ethic and fighting qualities during his 143-run contribution.
‘‘He batted beautifully. It was a mature knock and he’s a player that likes expressing himself, but it wasn’t that type of innings. It wasn’t a free-flowing innings where you could hit the ball nicely out of the middle . . . which made the knock, for me, even more special.’’
Smith said that Matt Macquet’s 33 runs ‘‘shifted the momentum a little bit . . . and I think that was the start of our recovery period’’ after Nelson had struck early trouble at 6-3.
And with Nelson’s tail also contributing substantial runs, it left Nelson’s bowlers with a handy total to defend which, according to Smith, they achieved admirably.
‘‘During the whole week in preparation we were talking a lot about lengths that we should be bowling, especially on artificial. We talked about hitting the top of the stumps . . . and we focused on being tight on off stump.’’
Although Nelson chased an outright result, the sameness of bowling on an artificial surface eventually played into Buller’s hands. And while satisfied with the result, Smith said the team must now regroup ahead of its biggest challenge of the season to date against a formidable Canterbury Country side. ‘‘These are games you should be looking forward to playing because you want to challenge yourself against good players and challenge yourself under pressure.
‘‘What we’ve done is all well and good but we’re back to the drawing board now. Now we’ve got to go even harder in terms of how we train.
‘‘A big focus for us is not to have a practise mindset when we train, but to have a match mindset because we feel a practise mindset is a sloppy mindset and we’re not going to do it with the same intensity.’’
Nelson’s form reversal has been a steady process involving plenty of hard work.
‘‘Previously I hadn’t had a lot of time to work with the guys or start implementing our culture and it’s starting to come through,’’ Smith said.
‘‘It’s not really there yet but the guys are starting to show signs of responding to that.’’